Wizard of Ends Blog Tour: Guest Post

The month long Wizard of Ends Blog Tour ends this Friday, but that means there are still five days of Wizardly goodness left. The tour started out here on the Pharos Blogject so it is only right that as it winds down we once again hand over this space to Vanessa Finaughty for another guest post.

5 Modern Real-World Attempts to Use Magic

Thank you for hosting me on your blog today, Richard.

I find it interesting to note that so many modern humans believe in the power of magic, particularly when I consider that many of them are/were people in power, not ‘nutcases’. Well, the latter is open for debate. However, it’s sad that most of these attempts to harness the power of magic were for the purpose of war.

1. In 2010, the Tijuana Police in Mexico turned to voodoo in an attempt to win the war against drugs. Under a full moon, voodoo priests slaughtered chickens, and then smeared the blood on the police officers in order to protect them from the drug cartel.

2. The Nazis searched for the Holy Grail, believing that finding the cup of Christ would give them supernatural powers, thereby enabling Germany to win the war.

3. During the Cold War, the Soviets put much effort into learning to harness the power of the mind, particularly telepathy and psychokinesis.

4. At the end of the Cold War, the US Government spent over twenty million dollars on the Stargate Project, which focussed on research on remote viewing – where one is ‘magically’ able to see things far from one’s physical body.

5. The magician Jasper Maskelyne helped the Allies during World War 2 in many ways, one of which was to use equipment called dazzle lights to make it appear as if the Suez Canal had disappeared. This was done to confuse German bombers, who would be unable to see the canal from the air. Okay, so this one is not real magic, but then again, I’m sure random people who saw the canal vanish would disagree.

I hope you’ve found these five facts entertaining. If you know of any other modern real-world attempts to use magic, I’d love to hear about them!

Author biography:

Vanessa Finaughty is an author of many genres who now focuses on fantasy and science fiction. She’s published 15 books, of which 6 are fantasy. Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and still lives there with her husband of fifteen years, her baby daughter and plenty of furry, four-legged ‘children’.

Vanessa has always been passionate about books, and knew from a young age that she wanted to write them one day. She loves animals, coffee and the smell of wet grass, and hates liars, sweltering weather and long queues. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, mythology, aliens and outer space, ancient history, life’s mysteries and martial arts, of which she has five years’ experience.

Author’s Links

Author website

Author blog

Goodreads

Twitter

Facebook

Smashwords

iBooks

Barnes & Noble

Publication dates:

Book One: Wizard of Ends was published on the 9th October 2014.

Book 2: Dark Creature was published on the 23rd of October 2014.

Today only: over on Vanessa’s blog you can get Simon Ludgate’s The Accidental Wizard FREE.

 

Tomorrow on the tour:

Vanessa holds forth on How to Create Original Fantasy Creatures, hosted by Independent Bookworm, and on her Author blog: Lashlor Leaflin’s Bucket List.

Also, if you still haven’t seen our interview with Vanessa back in August you can read that by clicking here.